Coherent detection in optical fiber systems

The drive for higher performance in optical fiber systems has renewed interest in coherent detection. We review detection methods, including noncoherent, differentially coherent, and coherent detection, as well as a hybrid method. We compare modulation methods encoding information in various degrees of freedom (DOF). Polarization-multiplexed quadrature-amplitude modulation maximizes spectral efficiency and power efficiency, by utilizing all four available DOF, the two field quadratures in the two polarizations. Dual-polarization homodyne or heterodyne downconversion are linear processes that can fully recover the received signal field in these four DOF. When downconverted signals are sampled at the Nyquist…